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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30028062">Unsaid Words</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/whathefawkes/pseuds/whathefawkes'>whathefawkes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Missing Moments [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Gen, Missing Scene</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 23:40:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,209</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30028062</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/whathefawkes/pseuds/whathefawkes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
      <p>This is my first fanfic in +15 years, I guess. Also, English is not my native language. <br/>Please, be kind. But I would love to read any comments you'd have.</p>
    </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Missing Moments [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2208999</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Unsaid Words</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is my first fanfic in +15 years, I guess. Also, English is not my native language. <br/>Please, be kind. But I would love to read any comments you'd have.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Remus Lupin faces the parchment. Two words stand out in the cheapest dark-green ink he could find at the emporium, in a terrifying contrast with the white paper.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Dear Harry,</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Remus remembers instantly, and in sequence, the countless times he wrote those exact same words, in the most varied ink colors, parchments of several shades of white and yellow, seasons and years blurring in his mind. Remus feels an overwhelming need to hit his head against the wall. The memory of when he first took Harry in his arms slowly washes over him. The beaming grins of Lily, James, and Sirius. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Oh, Sirius</span>
  </em>
  <span>. The three of them besotted with the baby — with everything he babbled or did. All the while, Remus could remember vividly how the worries swamped his mind. </span>
  <em>
    <span>What if I let Harry fall and he breaks into a million pieces? Do you lot realize now that there is one more person you love and that you can lose?</span>
  </em>
  
</p>
<p>
  <span>For Remus, it was always like that. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The crippling anxiety that began with a sneaky </span>
  <em>
    <span>what-if</span>
  </em>
  <span> and then spread like wildfire, overtaking it all. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Dear Harry,</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Nobody blames you, but why did you have to be so reckless? </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Remus crosses the words, shocked by the bluntness of his thoughts. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Dear Harry,</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I can not look at you and forget about those that I loved and died because of you</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Remus wants oblivion, wants to feel nothing. Not now, not ever. The need to hit his head against the wall is crushing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Dear Harry,</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It happened exactly like this in the First War. We enlisted in a secret organization. We were drunk with our courage, with our eagerness to challenge prejudice and those fucking Death Eaters. One by one, everyone we loved was cut off from us. People we loved and cherished were tortured and killed. Are you ready? Ready to lose everything you love? Ready to look around and realize that you are the only one left? Dear Harry, dying is not the worst. The soul-shattering feeling is when everyone dies, except you.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Remus Lupin looks at the scribbled parchment and suddenly realizes why he decided to step back from the Wizarding world after Halloween 1981. The war broke Remus beyond repair. There were not enough fucks left for him to give. Now and then, the most sordid emotions would overtake him, and Remus would proceed to lash out at any poor sod around him. Just like now. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Memories would overtake him. Just like now, when Remus would remember Sirius smiling — fire burning in his eyes — talking about Harry. How he would ask Dumbledore, again, for the boy to live with them, now that Grimmauld Place was the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix and several spells were protecting the house. This memory would bring others along, drowning Remus whenever he remembers James and Lily, in a burst of happiness, saying they were expecting their first child; how the news brought a new sense of purpose to the members of the Order. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Here's for Harry</span>
  </em>
  <span> seemed to be their new motto, all of them going into their missions with renewed vigor, even though they were down to a dozen people. Two weeks later, after Alice and Frank's announcement, the war cry changed to </span>
  <em>
    <span>Here's for Harry and Neville</span>
  </em>
  <span>. How many people would have died thinking this? That was the question that haunted Remus's dreams. How many of his friends were slaughtered at the altar of the Greater Good?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Dear Harry,</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>When you were born, I was terrified. James, Lily, and Sirius were always willing to put themselves in front of the danger. Maybe Lily would have thought a tad before doing something stupid. And then you were born, and I knew, deep in my bones, that it was over. It was the end of any hesitation. There is so much bravery in that. Perhaps you cannot understand because you are so like them — eager to put yourself in front of a curse to protect others. But there is a difference between bravery and bravado. Bravado is stupidity disguised as bravery. Bravado prevents you from thinking. It can throw you into a whirlwind of tragedies and leave chaos and scorched earth on the path of your destruction. Nothing will ever be the same. And whoever stays Harry is broken. Forever.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Thunder echoed in the distance. Gray clouds pregnant with rain were fast approaching, carried by the unrelenting wind. Even though the cottage windows were dirty and cracked, Remus could see that Yorkshire's countryside seemed eager for the imminent storm. The fields so green, bright, and lush — just like Lily’s eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Moony, </span>
  </em>
  <span>her voice loud and clear in his head, so much so that it startled him. The empty bottle of Ogden’s Old Firewhiskey tripped over and rolled across the filthy floor, the glass clinking with the others that crowded the corners of the kitchen. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Moony, hold my hand. Whenever you feel this, hold it tight.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>James worried so much, and on days when Remus’s dismay was not so suffocating, he managed to smile, weakly, at the desperate and fruitless attempts of Prongs to help him. Sirius, for his part, never knew how to behave — the ghost of the little boy he once was seemed to project through his gray eyes, the image of the mature and cool boy he so carefully built around him shattered. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Remus always suspected that his anxiety and uncontrolled emotions stirred something in Sirius that he tried furiously to crush. It seems that Sirius instinctively knew that once he went down that path, there were only rocks and a rough sea at the end of the road. Peter, for his part, just disappeared, letting Remus deal with whatever was the problem, something Remus was thankful for — one less expectation to handle.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But not Lily, no. She would stick to you, chamomile tea by her side, and would hold Remus’s hand and say, fierce: </span>
  <em>
    <span>Moony, hold my hand. Whenever you feel this, hold it tight. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Eyes like the fields surrounding him, like the moss that would always give more than taking. Very serious and focused on Remus. No pity, nor mercy. Lily was compassionate, sure. But most of all, she was fierce.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Every time you feel like this, hold my hand. Tight. Yeah, like that, Moony.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This time, however, Remus did not try to hold on to the edges of the table. He knew, for fifteen years now, it would not come near to offer the same comfort as Lily's warm hands.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Dear Harry,</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I am leaving for a mission, and I would not be able to correspond with you. If</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Flames erupted in the kitchen, Fawkes's feather glowing powerfully before extinguishing its fire. For Remus, it was not a beacon in the darkness. Quite the contrary. When the feather floated to the table, it remained vibrating gently. There was no need for suitcases, toiletries, parchment, or quills, not where he was going. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Remus looked at the parchment one last time. Unsaid words were heavy in his chest, like so many times before. Trying not to think further, he crumpled the paper into a ball. When Fawkes's feather flashed again, Remus touched it, feeling the familiar tug of the portkey take him away, away, away.</span>
</p>
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